Galatians

The Galatians were a Celtic tribe of Gallic descent that crossed the Bosphorus into Asia Minor at the beginning of the third century BC and settled in the "Galatia" region of central Anatolia. The Galatians consisted of the Tectosages, Tolistobogii, and Trocmi tribes, who held councils at the sacred oak grove of Drynemeton; Ancyra was their capital. The Galatians had the ability to dominate Asia Minor or push through Pontic and Seleucid lands to the sea and plunder untold riches as the result of the Wars of the Diadochi, and they later allied with the Roman Republic under Pompey the Great. In 47 BC, an army of Galatians led by King Mithridates I of the Bosporus assisted Julius Caesar during the Alexandrine Civil War in Egypt. The Galatians would live on as Roman vassals for centuries, and Galatia became a Roman province in 25 BC. By the 4th century, the Galatians had been absorbed into the other Greek-speaking populations of Asia Minor.